


Absent Soul

by Gramarye



Category: Cambridge Spies
Genre: 1930s, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Multiple Pairings, Spanish Civil War, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-11 07:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gramarye/pseuds/Gramarye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Excess of grief for the dead is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.</i> -- attributed to Xenophon. Anthony Blunt, Julian Bell, and Guy Burgess, in various permutations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absent Soul

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moonlight69](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlight69/gifts).



> The title of this story is the title of the poem quoted within the text – '_Alma ausente_' ('Absent Soul'), written by the Spanish playwright and poet Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) as part of his 'Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías'. Lorca was arrested and executed by the Falangists in the early days of the Spanish Civil War. His poetry and dramatic writings, many of which had strong political, social, and homoerotic themes, were banned in Franco's Spain for nearly two decades after his death.
> 
> I owe a good deal to Miranda Carter's excellent and invaluable biography _Anthony Blunt: His Lives_ for a few choice details about the relationship between Blunt and Julian Bell, as well as for general historical information on the Cambridge spies.

**1938**  


>   
>  _The bull does not know you, nor the fig tree,_   
>  _Nor the horses, nor the ants within your house.___   
>  _The child and the afternoon do not know you_  
> _Because you have died forever._  
> ____   
> 

'Did you see that they've published a book about Julian?'

It was five in the afternoon, and Guy was only on his third whisky of the day. Anthony suspected that he was, once again, attempting to moderate his drinking habits; if so, then Guy was being marginally more successful at it than usual.

'If by "they", you mean "his brother", then yes, I did,' Anthony replied. 'I actually had a letter about it, when the materials were being assembled -- asking if I had anything to contribute to it. Letters, papers, that sort of thing.'

'And did you?'

'No.' He didn't hesitate. There was nothing to lie about.

Guy peered at him over the rim of his glass. 'Surely you must have had _something_ to give them.'

'He seldom wrote to me.' The truth again.

The rest of Guy's whisky vanished in a single smooth swallow, and he set the glass down. 'And I expect you were a more frequent correspondent, then?'

At one point in their friendship, Anthony thought, he would have known exactly how to read that particular combination of casual tone, sardonic half-smile, and unashamedly challenging gaze. Somewhere along the way, he'd lost that ability, which in these days made most of his conversations with Guy an exercise in studied calm and careful silence.

Guy, of course, was able to read anything he liked into anyone's silence.

'Ah, there is it -- that cold fish stare.' The twist of his mouth became even more mocking, though his tone was casual to the point of disinterest. 'I must confess, I've often wondered whether buggering you mightn't be rather like buggering a leftover kipper, at times.'

He picked up his empty whisky glass, weighing it his hand. For a stomach-twisting moment, Anthony half-imagined that Guy was preparing to fling the glass at him, but Guy merely brought it up to his lips, tilting it all the way back as if he expected to find a few precious drops of alcohol still clinging to the edges.

After a moment, he lowered the glass, and ran his tongue in a slow circle around his lips before giving Anthony an insouciant grin. 'Care for another?'

**1928**  


>   
>  _The shoulder of the stone does not know you_  
>  Nor the black silk, wherein you are shuttered.  
>  Your silent memory does not know you  
>  Because you have died forever.  
> 

Julian's bookshelves are as much of a hodgepodge as Julian himself tends to be, when he's at home. Modern novels with stiff new bindings sit shoulder to shoulder among battered old Latin and Greek grammars, with no sense of order or organisation in their arrangement. But as Anthony studies the untidy rows, an underlying theme gradually begins to emerge from the chaos.

'Xenophon. Caesar on the Gallic Wars. Macan on Herodotus, Kaye and Malleson's _History of the Indian Mutiny_, Newbolt's _Naval History of the Great War_....' He casts a sidelong glance at Julian, who is fussing over a heap of neckties that he has deposited on his bed. 'Quite the fledgling military historian, I see.'

Julian looks up from his neckties. 'Is there something wrong with that?'

'No, not in the least.' He moves away from the bookshelf, and bends to pick up a stray black silk bow-tie that has escaped from its fellows and fallen onto the floor. 'Though you don't entirely strike me as the type.'

'Because I went to Leighton Park?' Julian gives a scornful snort. 'And good little pacifist boys from good little pacifist schools oughtn't to be interested in such things?'

Anthony chuckles, and lobs the bow-tie at Julian's head. 'Do you honestly imagine that either of us would be here right now if you were interested in the things that good little pacifist boys ought to be interested in?'

Julian laughs in return, raising a hand to defend himself against the bow-tie. But then his laugh fades, and when he looks over at Anthony again, his smile is shy and more than a little embarrassed.

'It's hard to explain, you know,' he says. 'I was looking over a bit of Xenophon the other day, just to check a turn of phrase that I thought he'd used -- I wanted to trot it out in my next supervision. I used to know great swathes of him by heart, but I wasn't certain...anyway, I got terribly caught up in it. Stayed up half the night reading all of _Anabasis_ over again, from beginning to end. Xenophon and the Ten Thousand, fighting their way up through Mesopotamia to the Black Sea. And that night....' His cheeks colour faintly. 'I ended up dreaming about it.'

Anthony blinks. 'Dreaming about ancient Mesopotamia?' As Julian's cheeks darken, he hastily adds, 'I'm not laughing, I promise.'

'Dreaming about what it must have been like back then.' Julian toys with a dark blue necktie, wrapping the thin strip of silk around one hand. 'In school we spent so much time playing about with the grammar that we never stopped to think about what they were actually _saying_ \-- and how they said it. A good writer can bring poetry into the worst of battles, make you feel what it was like to be there. It makes you feel alive, and _glad_ to be alive. At least it does to me.'

He speaks so earnestly that Anthony isn't entirely certain how to respond. It comes far too near to crossing one of the boundaries he has very deliberately staked out within both his heart and mind. Julian is not like Guy, not even like Kim Philby or Donald Maclean. There is no question of introducing Julian to the 'friends'. Julian Bell is the one part of Anthony Blunt's life into which the more sordid questions of politics are not permitted to intrude, lest the boy lose that peculiar sort of contagious innocence that he carries with him like a perpetual breath of fresh air.

'So this means,' Anthony says, after a moment's pause, 'that if I ever want to stir up your blood some night, I shall find it most expedient to murmur into your ear what precious little I can remember of Homer's "Catalogue of the Ships"?'

'Only if you can make the earth groan beneath me, as it did beneath the chariots of the Greeks as they flew towards Troy.' Even as he says it, Julian's cheeks flush again, this time at the conscious recognition of his own boldness.

Anthony finds it quite possibly the most endearing thing he has ever seen.

'I may,' he murmurs, as he closes the distance between them, 'be able to arrange that.'

**1929**  


>   
>  _Autumn will come, with little white snails,_  
>  Mist-shrouded grapes and clustered hills,  
>  But no-one will look into your eyes  
>  Because you have died forever.  
> 

As he massages his aching temples, Guy wonders at which point he will truly, finally, unceremoniously accept that his situation has blithely skipped through obsession, waltzed right past irony, nipped round the corner at bathos and come out the other side into pure screaming farce.

Philby hadn't thought to ask what on earth he was doing, lurking in the shadows of this extremely useful archway with its discreet but direct line of sight to Anthony Blunt's third-story room. Perhaps he imagined that it was all part of the great game, just another secret moonlight rendezvous involving strange men in shabby overcoats and secrets you keep from everyone but yourself, and possibly even from yourself as well. Then again, perhaps Philby didn't care. Or perhaps he could see Guy for exactly the miserable, pathetic bastard he was, because Anthony had said that he was absolutely transparent about Julian Bell and Anthony Blunt, as everyone from the Master of Trinity down to the bedder who Guy had bedded two nights ago knew, was never ever _ever_ wrong about anything.

The light in Anthony Blunt's third-story room has been out for five minutes now.

As Guy sees it, he has exactly three options. The first option is to continue standing here for as long as he can possibly tolerate it, ignoring the crick in his neck and the stiffness in his knees and the sheer absurdity of it all, until Julian comes down the stairs. The second option is to admit defeat and trudge on home, rounding off this ever-so-delightful evening with whatever alcohol remains in his rooms and the hardest, most agonising wank he can stand to give himself before he passes out. And the third option --

It plays out in his mind's eye, unfolding as if he had written it years ago and only just remembered in what corner of his imagination he had hidden it away. He barges into the room, startling the two of them in the middle of something erotic yet tasteful, like a scene on one of those ancient Greek vases that the British Museum keeps hidden away so the children won't see. An altercation of sorts, conducted in hushed voices, while a scarlet-faced Julian clutches the sheet to his chest and Anthony's ice-chip eyes are crystalline with fury. And then, once all the cards have been laid on the table....

Guy's hand steals down to the front of his trousers. Not inside them, not out here in the open, but just to the front of them.

...then Anthony gets to his feet, and the sheet falls away, and Julian (who for some inexplicable reason is still wearing his socks, and nothing but his socks) sits up a little straighter in that ridiculously tiny bed that can't possibly hold two people comfortably. And Guy falls to his knees as Anthony walks toward him, a living marble statue stepping off its pedestal, and then everything seems to melt together into a messy, liquid pool of Julian's socks and Anthony's hand stroking and smoothing his tangled curls and Guy obediently opening his mouth....

His cry sticks in the back of his throat, afraid to come out.

The light in Anthony Blunt's third-story room has been out for ten minutes now.

**1937**  


>   
>  _Because you have died forever,_  
>  Like all the dead of this earth,  
>  Like all the dead who now lie forgotten  
>  Upon a heap of lifeless dogs.  
> 

Kim Philby returned from Spain with the air of a pilgrim who had made the long journey to Compostella -- foot-weary and heart-sore, but possessed of a deep core of devotion that the pilgrimage had confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt. Guy Burgess, on the other hand, returned from Spain with the air of a soldier who'd nearly been blown to bits in no-man's-land and wanted nothing more than to forget the whole thing, either at the bottom of a whisky glass or in the centre of a room full of other people.

'I buried him at Guernica,' he informed Anthony over dinner, a week after they had returned. 'It seemed appropriate.'

Anthony nodded thoughtfully. 'I saw Kim's report on the bombing. He does make it quite easy to understand what really happened, provided you read into it exactly the opposite of anything he says.'

'He has a definite talent for that, our Kim.' A slight hesitation, before he added, 'I...I also met someone there. Someone who'd actually met Julian, at the front.'

'And?'

'He was at the front, with Julian.' Guy pushed his plate away, and wiped his mouth on his napkin. 'They'd seen a good deal of each other. Not just in the actual fighting, but in the day-to-day sort of thing. He had quite a lot of good things to say.'

'Hardly surprising.'

'He said that Julian had this...this incredible energy for his work. And not just his work -- he'd take on all kinds of jobs that weren't part of his regular duties. Running messages, helping to coordinate meals, writing letters, looking after others. Anything you'd ask him to do, he'd do it. Couldn't speak more highly of him.'

Anthony wasn't entirely sure where all of this was going. 'I see.'

'I smiled at him, and thanked him for telling me all that.' Guy's hands clenched around his napkin. 'In retrospect, I think I deserve a medal for not punching him in the gut.'

'Guy....' Anthony said warningly, glancing round the restaurant.

'It would've been a _lovely_ medal, too.' Guy waved one hand vaguely; his voice was as brittle and jagged as his smile. 'All sorts of gay ribbons and brass medallions and lovely crosses -- you really should ask Kim how much they go for that sort of thing over there.'

People were starting to look up from their meals. 'Guy -- '

'Do you think that I should ask dear old Franco to pin it on me?'

Short and sharp: 'Guy!'

Guy's shoulders twitched, flinching as if Anthony had struck him. Defeated, he slumped back in his chair.

'Such a fucking waste,' he muttered. 'Such a fucking, fucking waste.'

**1938**  


>   
>  _No-one knows you. No. But I sing of you._  
>  I sing of your profile and grace, for those to come.  
>  The signal maturity of your understanding;  
>  How you sought Death out, savoured its taste;  
>  The sadness of your once valiant gaiety.  
> 

He had ignored the letter from Julian's mother for far too long. He hadn't written to her after Julian's death -- not that he would have had much to say to her, regardless -- but he could hardly fail to reply to her direct request for contributions to a book about her son's life.

A letter of condolence would have been a simple matter. There are entire books that tell you how to write such letters, what kind of paper and ink to use and which phrases to say and in all likelihood how to lick the stamp before you put it on the envelope. Nearly all of them say to keep such letters short and to the point, and in the absence of any other guidance it is the only guidance that Anthony can follow.

Short and to the point. Start with a brief opening, to dear Mrs Bell or whatever she happened to be calling herself these days. Commiserate over her eldest son's death, express his own sympathies, apologise most humbly and sincerely for the delay in writing to her. And then --

'_I am afraid that I have no letters of Julian's. I never had very many from him, and hardly ever keep letters at all. I will look again, but feel fairly certain that I have nothing._'

His hand shook a little as he added a full stop to the end of the sentence, and his fingers, suddenly nerveless and leaden, fumbled with the pen. It slipped from his grasp, and he caught it just before it could fall and spatter ink on the paper.

'Foolish...' he hissed, scowling at his hand. The sudden flash of anger drove out the fog in his mind, and the burst of clarity served as an impetus to get the whole thing over with. He seized hold of the pen again, dashing off a few more lines. Mention what Guy had told him, about seeing someone who'd met Julian in Spain. Praise his strength of character, his determination to bring justice to a world that sorely lacked any appearance of it. Close the whole thing and follow it with his signature. Not too large, not too cramped.

The ink had to dry before he could fold it the letter and put it in an envelope. Waiting for the ink to dry would give him just enough time to look over at his bookshelf and check to see -- ah, yes, there it was.

A cheaply bound copy of Xenophon's _Anabasis_, dog-eared and well-read. One previous owner.

He had been thinking about destroying it for several weeks now. Tonight, perhaps, he would consign it to the flames.

The Greeks themselves, he felt certain, would have approved.

>   
>  _It will be a long time, if ever, before there is born_  
>  An Andalusian so true, so rich in adventure.  
>  I sing of his elegance with words that moan,  
>  And remember a sad breeze through the olive groves.  
> 


End file.
